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Mexican and U.S. students look both ways and cross the border.

Some of my favorite teaching moments are when I can shut up and let students teach each other. This magic happened recently when a group of high school students from one of Chicago’s most under-resourced neighborhoods came to our university campus—just a few miles—but an entire world away.

Reading and writing about the work of activists helped this teacher and her students realize that they can make social change by starting small.

Sarah had a strange way about her. She would focus so completely on whatever she was reading that she seemed oblivious to the world around her. However, when the volume in the room reached a certain level, she would burst out with a screaming plea at her classmates to be quiet. “I can’t take anymore of this noise,” she’d yell. At other times, she made loud exclamations to no one in particular. “My mom makes great cinnamon rolls,” she announced one day while unpacking her materials.

As the number of obese and overweight children grows, so does size bias.

My middle school students had started to use words like “bum,” “creeper,” and “hobo” to describe people who are homeless in our city. To my eighth-graders, it was comic relief.